July 2021 | Page 4 of 17 | My Crime Library

Rolando Ruiz Texas Execution

Rolando Ruiz was executed by the State of Texas for a murder for hire. According to court documents Rolando Ruiz was paid to murder Theresa Rodriguez. Theresa Rodriguez was leaving a car when she was fatally shot by Rolando Ruiz in a crime paid for by her husband and brother in law. Rolando Ruiz would be executed by lethal injection on March 8, 2017

Rolando Ruiz More News

A paid hit man was executed Tuesday night in Texas for gunning down a San Antonio woman in a life insurance scheme nearly a quarter-century ago.

Rolando Ruiz was given a lethal injection for fatally shooting Theresa Rodriguez, 29, outside her home in 1992 as she was getting out of a car with her husband and brother-in-law, who both orchestrated her murder. Ruiz was paid $2,000 to carry out the killing.

Ruiz, strapped to the Texas death chamber gurney, looked directly at two sisters of his victim and their husbands and apologized profusely.

“Words cannot begin to express how sorry I am and the hurt I have caused you and your family,” he told them as they looked through a window a few feet from him. “May this bring you peace and forgiveness.”

He also thanked his own family for their love and support.

“I am at peace,” he said. “Jesus Christ is Lord. I love you all.”

As the lethal dose of pentobarbital was administered, he took several deep breaths, then began snoring quietly. All movement stopped within about 30 seconds.

Ruiz, 44, was pronounced dead 29 minutes later at 11:06 p.m.

His execution was the third this year in Texas and the fifth nationally.

“It’s not going to bring her back, so it really doesn’t mean very much,” Susie Sanchez, whose daughter was killed in the contract murder, said Monday. Her daughters, who were among the witnesses Tuesday night, declined to comment afterward.

The execution was delayed for nearly five hours until the U.S. Supreme Court rejected three appeals attorneys had filed for Ruiz to try to stop the punishment

His lawyers argued to the high court that lower courts improperly rejected an earlier appeal that focused on whether Ruiz earlier had deficient legal help. They also contended Ruiz’s execution would be unconstitutionally cruel because he’s been on death row since 1995, had multiple execution dates and two reprieves. Attorney Lee Kovarsky blamed the long time between a San Antonio jury’s verdict and the punishment on the state’s failure to provide Ruiz with competent lawyers earlier in his appeals.

Justice Stephen Breyer said he would have stopped the execution to further examine the question of prolonged death row confinement.

Assistant Texas Attorney General Edward Marshall had disputed the claims, telling the high court arguments about earlier deficient legal help “have been inspected, scrutinized, studied, probed, analyzed, reviewed and evaluated” at all levels of the federal courts. While some individual Supreme Court justices, like Breyer, have raised questions about long death row confinement, the courts consistently have ruled it was not unconstitutionally cruel.

Ruiz approached a car pulling up to Rodriguez’s home the night of July 14, 1992, under the guise of seeking directions. Her husband of nearly seven years, Michael, was in the car along with Michael’s brother, Mark. Ruiz, who already had pocketed $1,000 and had failed in two earlier killing attempts, asked Mark Rodriguez if he wanted him to “do it,” and Rodriguez gave him the go-ahead. As Theresa Rodriguez was getting out of the car, Ruiz put a .357 Magnum revolver to her head and fired. Three days later, Ruiz collected another $1,000 for the completed job.

Evidence showed Michael Rodriguez stood to collect at least a quarter-million dollars in insurance benefits from his wife’s death and that he’d recently applied for another $150,000 in life insurance for her.

Ruiz had met Mark Rodriguez at the home of a mutual friend, was arrested nine days after the shooting and implicated the brothers. The police investigation was aided by a telephone tip after Theresa Rodriguez’s employer, the San Antonio-based financial services giant USAA, offered a $50,000 reward for information about her slaying.

The Rodriguez brothers eventually accepted life prison terms in plea deals. Mark Rodriguez was paroled in 2011.

Michael Rodriguez later joined Ruiz on death row as one of the notorious Texas 7, a group of seven inmates who escaped from a South Texas prison in 2000 and killed a Dallas-area police officer. He was executed in 2008. He blamed his infatuation with a younger woman for the contract murder plot.

Joe Ramon, who accompanied Ruiz the night of the shooting, and Robert Silva, identified as the intermediary who put the Rodriguez brothers in touch with Ruiz, also received life prison sentences.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rolando-ruiz-remorseful-hit-man-in-texas-murder-for-hire-slaying-is-executed/

Mark Christeson Missouri Execution

Mark Christeson was executed by the State of Missouri for the murders of a woman and two children. According to court documents Mark Christeson would strangle a woman and would drown a two children during a robbery. Mark Christeson would be executed by lethal injection on January 31, 2017

Mark Christeson More News

Updated Jan. 31, 9:34 p.m. – The state of Missouri has carried out its first execution since May of 2016.

According to a statement from the Department of Corrections, Mark Christeson’s lethal injection began at 6:57 p.m., and he was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m.

Christeson’s final meal was a bacon cheeseburger, fries, a slice of pecan pie, and a soda. When asked if he had a final statement, he said, “to let my family know I love them with all my heart and I’m more than blessed to have them in my life…and thank God for such an amazing family.”

“It will be 19 years ago tomorrow that Susan Brouk and her two young children were brutally murdered,” attorney general Josh Hawley said in a written statement. “My heart and prayers are with the victims’ loved ones. I hope that their families find solace in the judgment carried out tonight.”

Anne Precythe, acting DOC director, read a statement from governor Eric Greitens after Christeson’s execution:

“Tonight, as we remember Susan, Adrian, and Kyle Brouk, our thoughts and prayers are again with their family members and loved ones. The acts of violence that took this 36-year-old mother, her 12-year-old daughter, and her nine-year-old boy were unspeakably cruel. “Susan was a single mother whose life revolved around her children. Adrian was a seventh grader who did well in school and played volleyball. She hoped to one day be a veterinarian or a teacher. Kyle was only nine. He played soccer and dreamed of being an Army officer. They were a loving family, living a quiet life in a rural community. Their hopes and dreams were taken away by these evil crimes. “The man who was found guilty by a jury of raping and murdering Susan and murdering her two beloved children, Kyle and Adrian, has now had his sentence carried out. We know that a Missouri family will always miss and grieve the young mother and her two children who have been gone for nearly 20 years. Tonight, we grieve with them. “The process of justice on this matter has now reached its conclusion. We pray for comfort and healing for the families and friends whose lives have been deeply affected by these unspeakable crimes, so that they may find closure and peace. I ask that Missourians join me in keeping the family of Susan, Adrian, and Kyle Brouk in their thoughts and prayers tonight.

Harley Brouk, the half-sister of Adrian and Kyle, also prepared a statement:

“Almost 19 years ago to the day my brother and sister were taken from us, this is the day that we finally get justice for them. I know that they are watching over us and they’re happy for all of us. There’s not a day that goes by that I do not miss them and I wish that they were here. “Now we have justice and we can all move forward through this tragedy the rest of the way. I was only five when they were taken from me but it has impacted my life entirely. I never got to have that special bond with my brother or sister that every kid wishes for. “Kyle was nine and Adrian was 12. They never got to fully live out their lives and go through college and high school and figure out what it is they wanted to do in this world. “But now that they are above us, watching over us, I know I have the world’s greatest guardian angels anybody could ask for. “This is a sad day, a happy day and a day that I will never forget.”

‘Justice was absolutely not served’

Christeson was put to death despite the substance of his state case never being heard by a federal court, according to attorney Joseph Perkovich. He said they never had the financial capacity to fully evaluate his mental capacity, for starters.

“We, as his attorneys, who came into the case less than three years, have never had resources to have medical professionals examine him, so we don’t know the full extent of his limitations,” he said. “We can observe them as lay people, and we have – we’ve talked to people who’ve known him over the years in prison and outside of it – but because the courts deprived the resources to actually get at these fundamental questions about his capacity, that was never done.”

On October 12 of last year, while Perkovich and fellow attorney Jennifer Merrigan were challenging that move, the Missouri Supreme Court set Christeson’s execution date for January 31. He said from that point there seemed to be a rush to have him put to death.

“Here we had three different issues, four issues in total, granted to be heard for briefing and argument, and almost instantly that process was compressed to the point of distorting it,” Perkovich said. “(It) led to the court holding onto the case…so that they could then rule against Mr. Christeson and stay on schedule, so that the powers that be who thought it was important to have this execution go forward could stay on schedule.”

In Missouri’s response to the appeal for a stay of execution, attorney general Josh Hawley argued that Christeson was not hampered by any “putative mental incapacity.”

“Christeson was able to carry out normal everyday functions,” Hawley said. “He was able to respond to prison conduct violation allegations, identify a witness, request an attorney for a grievance, and provide his own version of events.”

Updated Jan. 31, 6:19 p.m. – Governor Eric Greitens has denied Mark Christeson’s request for clemency.

He issued a written statement, which reads in part:

“As Governor, clemency is a power and a process I take seriously. I have thoughtfully considered the facts of this case. I have done a comprehensive review of the request from Mr. Christeson. After deliberate consideration, I deny clemency. My decision today upholds the decision handed down by the jury and upheld by both state and federal courts.

“As preparations are made to carry out the sentence, I ask that Missourians remember Susan Brouk, Adrian Brouk, and Kyle Brouk at this time and keep their family members and loved ones in your thoughts and prayers. May god bless them and their families.”

Updated Jan. 31, 5:53 p.m. – Barring clemency from governor Eric Greitens, Mark Christeson will become the first death row inmate executed in Missouri since last May.

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Christeson’s appeal for a stay, and a separate appeal for his case to be sent back to a lower court. A spokesperson for the High Court said that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have granted the stay.

Updated Jan. 30 with Christeson’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court –Missouri death row inmate Mark Christeson is appealing his pending execution to the United States Supreme Court.

He’s scheduled to die by lethal injection during the 24-hour window that begins at 6:00 p.m. Tuesday.

In filings to the nation’s high court Monday afternoon, Christeson’s attorney, Jennifer Merrigan, argues that a stay of execution is warranted due to evidence of “attorney misconduct,” stating that the attorneys from his first trial missed a deadline for a federal appeal in 2005.

In addition to the stay, Merrigan argues that a new federal judge should be assigned to re-hear the case. She also says Christeson was incapable of understanding his legal rights during his original trial because he is “severely mentally impaired.”

One decision initially went in his favor in December, in which he was granted an additional hearing into his mental capacity. But the state of Missouri requested, and was granted, an expedited schedule for the hearing and filings ahead of time, in order to meet the January 31 execution date.

That hearing took place on January 20th, and a federal judge ruled against Christeson.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/government-politics-issues/2017-01-30/missouri-executes-mark-christeson-for-1998-triple-slayings

Terry Edwards Texas Execution

Terry Edwards was executed by the State of Texas for a murder committed during a robbery. According to court documents Terry Edwards would shoot and kill Mickell Goodwin, 26, and Tommy Walker, 34 during a robbery of a Subway restaurant. Terry Edwards would be executed by lethal injection on January 26, 2017.

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Attorneys for Texas death row inmate Terry Edwards are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his scheduled execution Thursday for a fatal robbery more than 14 years ago at a Dallas-area Subway sandwich shop.

Evidence showed Edwards worked at the restaurant but was fired a few weeks earlier for stealing from the cash register. An employee and the store manager were killed in the $3,000 holdup in Balch Springs, about 15 miles southeast of downtown Dallas.

Edwards, 43, would be the second prisoner executed this year in Texas, the third nationally.

Edwards’ lawyers contended Dallas County prosecutors at his trial incorrectly portrayed Edwards as the shooter and that he was innocent of the shootings. They also said that the trial of Edwards, who is black, improperly excluded black people from the jury. And they accused prosecutors of manipulating evidence and testimony.

Finally, they said Edwards received deficient legal help at both his trial and in earlier appeals.

The execution should be stopped and the case reopened for a “full and fair” hearing, attorney Carl Medders told the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The court rejected that appeal late Wednesday, saying the facts did not support Edwards’ arguments, that Edwards’ previous attorney “missed no deadlines and filed substantive arguments.”

John Mills, another lawyer on Edwards’ legal team, said attorneys would take their case to the Supreme Court.

State attorneys argued Edwards’ appeals improperly raised new claims, were too late under filing deadlines and had insufficient evidence to support their claims.

“Edwards could not hire experts to overcome the fact that he was found with the murder weapon and the money from the robbery,” Ellen Stewart-Klein, an assistant Texas Attorney General, said in a court brief. “Expert testimony could not have changed the evidence that the victims were shot from point-blank range. And expert testimony could not undo the statements Edwards made confessing upon arrest.”

An audio recording in the police car caught Edwards saying he had messed up “big time,” and talking about two murders.

In a separate appeal, other lawyers asked the Supreme Court to halt Edwards’ punishment until the court resolves an appeal that seeks to require Texas prison officials test the pentobarbital they use for lethal injections to ensure its potency and sterility. Edwards is among several Texas death row inmates who argue the testing is needed to make certain the drug made by an unidentified compounding pharmacy doesn’t cause unconstitutional pain and suffering.

Edwards admitted being in the Subway store shortly after it opened July 8, 2002, but told police a man he knew as “T-Bone” gave him the gun and did the shootings. Investigators later determined the other man he claimed to not know by name was his cousin.

Edwards was on parole at the time of the shootings. He’d been released in October 1999 after prison time for car theft and possession with intent to deliver cocaine.

Mickell Goodwin, 26, and Tommy Walker, 34, were each shot in the head in the holdup. Walker, the store manager, had seven children and stepchildren. Goodwin was mother of two daughters.

The second man involved, Edwards’ cousin, Kirk Edwards, turned himself in to police a day after the shootings. He had a previous criminal record for burglary and theft and now is serving 25 years for aggravated robbery for the sandwich shop case.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/terry-edwards-texas-convict-in-subway-shop-slayings-scheduled-for-execution/

Ricky Gray Virginia Execution

Ricky Gray was executed by the State of Virginia for the murders of eight people. According to court documents Ricky Gray and Ray Dandridge would shoot and kill eight people over a seven day period. Both Ricky Gray and Ray Dandridge would be convicted and sentenced to death. Ricky Gray would be executed by lethal injection on January 17, 2018. Ray Dandridge would later be resentenced to life in prison

Ricky Gray More News

Convicted killer Ricky Gray, who confessed to killing a family of four in 2006, was executed Wednesday in Virginia after the US Supreme Court denied a stay of execution where his lawyers argued a lethal drug cocktail violated his constitutional rights.

Gray, 39, was pronounced dead at 9:42 p.m. ET on Wednesday, said Lisa Kinney, communications director for the Virginia Department of Corrections.

When asked whether he had any last words, Gray said, “Nope.”

Ahead of Gray’s execution, his lawyers appealed to the US Supreme Court for a stay of the execution – criticizing the use of a controversial drug combination – calling it an “experimental and unconstitutional method of execution.”

The state of Virginia used a lethal injection composed of a three-drug cocktail of midazolam, potassium chloride and the paralytic drug, rocuronium bromide. Gray’s attorneys argued that midazolam had already failed to render prisoners unconscious during executions in Alabama, Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe issued a statement saying he would not intervene.

“Mr. Gray was convicted in a fair and impartial trial, and a jury sentenced him to death in accordance with Virginia law,” the governor said.

Executions are typically done with three drugs given in stages: The first (sodium thiopental or pentobarbital) puts the prisoner to sleep, the second (pancuronium bromide) brings on paralysis and the final agent (potassium chloride) stops the heart.

States that have capital punishment have been forced to find new drugs to use since European-based manufacturers began to ban exports of the cocktail ingredients to the United States over concerns the drugs were being used for capital punishment.

Denmark-based Lundbeck banned US prisons from using its pentobarbital.

So, death penalty states began looking for alternatives.

In some executions, controversial drugs as midazolam or propofol have used instead, which has raised much concern.

In January 2014, Ohio used the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone in the execution of convicted murderer and rapist Dennis McGuire. McGuire appeared to gasp and convulse for at least 10 minutes before dying from the drug cocktail used in his execution, witnesses described.

When Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett was sentenced to death by lethal injection he was administered the drug cocktail: midazolam; vecuronium bromide to stop respiration; and potassium chloride to stop the heart. Witnesses described the man convulsing and writhing on the gurney, as well as struggling to speak, before officials blocked the witnesses’ view.

Lockett appeared to have a heart attack and died.

Gray and his nephew Ray Dandridge went on a killing spree in January 2006, murdering seven people in six days, court documents reveal.

In Dandridge’s affidavit, he said that before they went to the the Harvey’s home, Gray “smoked marijuana laced with something.” Gray’s attorneys unsuccessfully argued that the jurors who sentenced him to death did not get a clear explanation of the severe abuse that shaped Gray’s life and his subsequent use of PCP, a drug which can cause psychosis.

Gray was convicted of killing Kathryn and Bryan Harvey and their two young daughters, Stella and Ruby, during a home invasion on New Year’s Day.

The Harveys were found brutally beaten, bound and repeatedly stabbed in the basement of their Richmond home. The home was also set on fire.

Five days later, Gray was also involved, though not convicted, in the murders of three other Richmond residents: Percyell Tucker, his wife, Mary Tucker and Mary’s daughter, Ashley Baskerville.

A Virginia jury convicted Gray of five counts of capital murder and sentenced him to death on two of the counts, the murders of Stella and Ruby, according to the court documents.

Dandridge was convicted in the killings of the Baskerville-Tucker family and sentenced to life in prison.

After Gray’s arrest for the Harvey family murders, he also confessed to killing his wife. With the help of Dandridge he bludgeoned her to death with a lead pipe in November 2005, according to the court documents. Gray was questioned at the time but was not arrested for her murder.

“There’s no excuse for what he did, but it’s a tragedy from beginning to end for the Harvey family and for Ricky Gray,” Virginia’s Attorney General told CNN about the case.

A website was set up seeking Gray’s clemency ahead of his execution.

In a video posted on the site, family members and doctors who testified in his case, detail the sexual and physical abuse Gray suffered as a child.

Gray turned to drugs as a child – using marijuana, cocaine and PCP – as he “desperately tried to numb the haunting traumas,” according to the site.

Days before his execution, Gray issued a public apology.

“I’m sorry they had to be a victim of my despair,” Gray said in part in an audio recording posted on the clemency site.

“Remorse is not a deep enough word for how I feel. I know my words can’t bring anything back, but I continuously feel horrible for the circumstances that I put them through. I robbed them from a lifelong supply of joy.”

Gray is the second inmate to be executed in 2017. Death row inmate Christopher Wilkins, 48, was put to death in Texas on January 11.

Capital punishment is legal in 32 states.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/18/us/ricky-gray-executed-virginia/index.html

Christopher Wilkins Texas Execution

Christopher Wilkins was executed by the State of Texas for a double murder in 2005. According to court documents Christopher Wilkins was released from prison early in 2005 and months later would shoot and kill tow men, Willie Freeman and Mike Silva over a drug debt. Christopher Wilkins was executed by lethal injection on January 11, 2017

Christopher Wilkins More News

Texas on Wednesday put to death an inmate convicted of killing two men over a drug deal, the first U.S. execution of 2017.

Christopher Wilkins, 48, was declared dead at 6:29 p.m., 13 minutes after a lethal injection of pentobarbital.

Before the drug was administered, he twice mouthed “I’m sorry,” to two relatives of one of the murder victims as they watched through a window. He gave no final statement.

Wilkins had explained to jurors at his capital murder trial in 2008 how and why he killed his friends in Fort Worth three years earlier, saying he didn’t care if they sentenced him to death.

Wilkins was released from prison in 2005 after serving time for a federal gun possession conviction. He drove a stolen truck to Fort Worth, where he befriended Willie Freeman, 40, and Mike Silva, 33.

Court records show Freeman and his drug supplier, who wasn’t identified, duped Wilkins into paying $20 for a piece of gravel that he thought was a rock of crack cocaine. Wilkins said he shot Freeman on Oct. 28, 2005, after Freeman laughed about the scam, then he shot Silva because he was there. Wilkins’ fingerprints were found in Silva’s wrecked SUV and a pentagram matching one of Wilkins’ numerous tattoos had been carved into the hood.

Wilkins also testified that the day before the shootings, he shot and killed another man, Gilbert Vallejo, 47, outside a Fort Worth bar in a dispute over a pay phone, and about a week later used a stolen car to try to run down two people because he believed one of them had taken his sunglasses.

“I know they are bad decisions,” Wilkins told jurors of his actions. “I make them anyway.”

Wes Ball, one of Wilkins’ trial lawyers, described him as “candid to a degree you don’t see,” and had hoped his appearance on the witness stand would have made jurors like him.

“It didn’t work,” Ball said.

While awaiting trial, authorities discovered he had swallowed a handcuff key and fashioned a knife to be used in an escape attempt.

“This guy is the classic outlaw in the model of Billy the Kid, an Old West-style outlaw,” said Kevin Rousseau, the Tarrant County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Wilkins.

Twenty convicted killers were executed in the U.S. last year, the lowest number since the early 1980s. That tally includes seven executions in Texas — the fewest in the state since 1996. Wilkins is among nine Texas inmates already scheduled to die in the early months of 2017.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/01/11/texas-execution-christopher-wilkins/96470784/